Soundtrack Over Story

As Kashmiri artists help shape Bollywood's biggest emotional hit, the stories they live remain untold.

- Ansar Hussain Dar

It begins with a song. A haunting tune, wrapped in longing, plays as two lovers part ways at a misty train station.

That song, Saiyaara’s title track, has become the heartbeat of a film that has swept the Indian imagination. Millions have heard it. Millions more have wept with it.

Its composer, Faheem Abdullah, is from Srinagar. Soft-spoken and sincere, he said in an interview, “I wanted people to feel something deeply. I put my soul into it.”

And the country felt it, across timelines, reels, playlists, car radios.

But what they felt wasn't Faheem’s Kashmir. His home doesn’t make it to the screen, except in the snow-covered postcard shots that Bollywood uses like wallpaper. The life behind the lens remains untouched.

Faheem wasn't the only Kashmiri behind Saiyaara. The film's striking aesthetic — golden dusk shots, flowing fabrics, soft interiors — came from the eye of cinematographer Rayees Ganaie and the imagination of costume designer Mahira Qadri.

All three, in their own way, brought emotion to life. Their fingerprints are on every frame. And yet, the story they helped tell was someone else’s. It was a story that sold.

Saiyaara is now one of the biggest romantic hits of the year. Its plot — familiar, formulaic, tear-stained — is less important than its feeling. It delivered the one thing Indian cinema can always count on: escape.